Page 199 of The Discount Damsel

He tore his hands through his hair. “I never should have enabled him with those rice paper spells. I should’ve seen this happening. I should’ve been a better friend.”

Millie set a hand on his shoulder. “There’s a difference in having friends of a different species than your own kind. It sounds like Dirk yearned for draconian companionship. And why shouldn’t he have it? He’s marvelous!”

“His littermates are children, and so is he. You know how kids are—they can be selfish and cruel without proper instruction. They probably don’t have any idea how grievously their actions have hurt Dirk without a parent to explain it to them, and his parents are still on that expedition.”

“His brothers and sisters can get struck by lightning for all I care!”

“Millie, calm down.”

“I will not calm down. This isn’t right!”

“And we’re going to fix it, if you can stop stomping around and get your butt back on the skiff. The sooner we get back to the tower, the sooner we can figure this out.” And the sooner I can tell you what your help in all this means to me.

“Bossy,” she muttered, but she obeyed.

This time she nestled down by the luck dragon in the bow of the skiff to stroke his feathers. Bradley leaned the dune skiff to catch the wind, and they were off. As the sun rose and chased away the night’s chill, the tower came into view. A spire of manilla stone with a conical roof of bluish slate.

Bradley remembered the first day he saw it, on the back of a panther raven griffin and leaning around Master Excelsior’s bony shoulder. It had seemed both prison and sanctuary, alone here in the waste. Now he saw it for what it truly was—a trial. A trial with rules to be learned and victories to be earned in the doing.

“The classroom is wonderful for learning theory,” Master Excelsior had told him shortly after Bradley had become his official protégé, “but the real world, where everything is messy and beautiful, is where your true education lies, dear boy. Go outside. It’s time to stop reading about others’ discoveries and go make some for yourself.”

Panicked and frightened, Bradley had forgotten Master Excelsior’s first lesson and retreated right back into those books for an answer to his problem. He should’ve been bolder, maybe even reckless. He should have abandoned every restraint and explored. He’d been too afraid of failing to truly try.

That was a mistake he would never make again, no matter what happened in the next few days. The princess had convinced him of that, shown him that the route to success wasn’t linear—it was a river delta of twists and turns and pivot points that all eventually led to triumph. How many times had she failed, pivoted, and persevered? He would do the same.

Another hour later, they were slowing the skiff to a halt beside Sir Eustace’s tent. Duchess was in the shade of the tent’s awning, waiting for them, and lifted off her seat with a low mew that told them the ministry official was still abed inside.

Dirk, now awake, sat in the sand and cuddled the fluffy white cat close. He buried his snout into her fur for a calming sniff. Duchess purred.

“I don’t suppose you could get me another bezoar, could you?” he asked.

Duchess rubbed the top of her head under his chin, then disappeared into the tent. She emerged with a bezoar, which wiggled out of her mouth and needed to be pounced and retrieved at least twice before she could drop it at the dragon’s feet. Dirk had never smelled anything so glorious in his entire life, and he quickly scarfed it down.

“Can you fly us up top?” Bradley asked gently.

Dirk attempted to raise a wind to float his friends up to the balcony and managed only a light breeze. He tried again and only the sand shifted.

“I think I’m just tired.”

No one mentioned that he’d spent the last eight hours in the deepest of slumbers.

“Lemme get a spell.”

Dirk rooted around in his satchel for the appropriate spells, adding a few more for good measure. They were as bland as saltines and just as dry, inducing a great deal of lip-smacking and tongue acrobatics to force the wad down. Coughing, he slammed his paw into his chest to help clear his esophagus.

The effervescent tingling of magic diffusing into his body was more muted than when he’d flown them out of Pierpont, a low-vibration hum than anything else. Unsettled, Dirk snatched up the cargo net. His claws punctured Millie’s suitcase and one of the waterskins. The orange sand beneath the deluge darkened to cinnamon.

“Don’t worry about it,” Millie chirped, climbing up onto his back. “Plenty of water in the tower.”

Dirk swallowed past an angry lump in his throat, claws flexing. He was never this careless. “But your dresses⁠—”

“I’ll fix those.” Bradley patted his arm. “It’s nothing but a bit of thread.”

With his friends and their luggage secure, Dirk heaved himself into the sky. “Skin my scales,” he grumbled. “Did you two gain a hundred pounds when we were on holiday?”

Millie and Bradley shared a worried look. Dirk was definitely losing his ability to fly.

But he managed, choosing a spiraling ascent around the tower to take advantage of the thermals. The rising heat shot them past the balconies and above the weathervane protruding from the peak of the conical roof. Dirk cursed quietly as he fought to regain control of his flight.